Ms Kate Duggan:

I need to say something at the outset for the public accounts committee, and we have discussed it with the Comptroller and Auditor General. We can talk to anything relating to the costs associated with these cases but we have a number of High Court orders that have been taken and are in place whereby we now cannot disclose details pertaining to the cases.

What I can tell the committee is that all four court cases are related. There are complex legal settlements around complex litigation but they are all on foot of a protected disclosure that was made regarding a service issue, which I assure the committee has been resolved. It is not a feature of, and did not relate to, missing children. I can confirm this to the committee because I have been asked it.

Those cases related to circumstances where a protected disclosure was made to the then Minister and where the board of the agency, on legal advice, engaged a third party to undertake an investigation. The High Court, in subsequent litigation, quashed that report. The committee can see what we all agree are extraordinary costs in respect of the four cases set out before it within that briefing. We have set out for the committee each of the cases, the total cost of the settlement-----